Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Genital Mutilation Barbarism
The article below is stunning firstly for revealing how this barbarism of female genital mutilations (FGM) is today being progressively sanitized within mainstream Indonesia, now being performed en-mass within the schools. Of course, male genital mutilations (MGM) are performed on boys in all Muslim nations, and even in the USA where it is declining from a high of around 80% in the 1950s to now "only" around 50% of all baby boys. Even Jews are questioning this practice. But in the Muslim world, female genital mutilations constitute the worst of the problem, and they are increasingly sanctified and approved by Islamic clergy even as international organizations oppose them. Many non-Muslims in the West tend to facilitate the spreading of FGM, via the multicultural dictum of "don't criticise", and generous applications of Orwellian double-speak.
It is revealing how the barbarism of FGM is justified by Muslims as a measure to "stamp out female sexual feeling". They are quite open about it. But in the West, Muslim apologists cloak everything behind a mask, as if they really didn't mean it when they said such things about crushing female sexuality. So while Muslims continue to speak about the devilish and dirty nature of female sexuality and sexual organs, Westerners fall over themselves trying to fabricate excuses for them. As with the new term "genital cutting" which is the politically-correct thing to say instead of genital mutilation. We aren't supposed to remind people that having your genitals cut with knives and razors constitutes a mutilation, aimed at stamping out your capacity for sexual pleasure. As opposed to something "surgical" as with "cutting". And of course, "cutting" suggests a legitimate reason, as with doctors and hospitals, while the term "mutilation" exposes the motivations of sexual hatred, which stands behind the urge to mutilate the healthy genitals of children. Such barbarism now being done in the schools also no longer requires a cultural context, as the extended family or village no longer is involved. It is now so "space age" and "high-tech", being done right in the schools by a squad of "medical specialists" (in reality a gang of brutal, cold and hateful women). It is now "hygienic" and "for the health".
The article below is secondly stunning in how the NYT tries to soft-pedal all these components of sexual hatred, even with the outrageous quack-medical statement "The circumcision of boys... has demonstrated health benefits, namely reduced risk of infection and some protection against H.I.V." Outrageous lies from quack academics and emotionally-fixated penis-cutters. They won't tell you, the same worthless "correlation" studies which are abused to justify MGM, also showed correlations to female genital mutilations -- but they didn't have the audacity to claim that "female genital mutilation ... has demonstrated health benefits, namely reduced risk of infection and some protection against H.I.V." !!
This is not surprising, as the NY Times has a long history of general ridicule and misrepresentation of the anti-male-circumcision movement in the USA, as have most other self-described "progressive" news media, something they also generally did/do with social movements embracing home-birth, gentle child-birth, free schools and home-schooling, anti-vaccination, AIDS criticism, and holistic or natural healing social movements. Such is the contempt the "progressives" have for living life, and the background to their chronically derogatory remarks about insightful social pioneers like Wilhelm Reich.
The mutilations in Indonesia are not as severe as in North Africa, where the infibulation requires a girls' entire clitoris and labia to be cut and scraped away, the vaginal opening sewed up almost completely, and the girls in a nearly paralytic coma over weeks. But the Times does not reveal the historical connections between the two regions, or why they are more severe in the one region, as compared to others. The worst of the genital mutilations historically existed in NE Africa, which may reflect their origins in ancient Egyptian society. But they spread and became more severe over time through outward-spreading migrations and invasions. By the first millennium AD, infibulation was used to "certify" the virginity of captured slave girls destined for harems of the Middle East. Boys of the same regions, captured to make eunuchs for the pedophile Sheiks, were fully castrated, a barbarism leaving up to 90% of them dead. Survivors were marched north, in chains, to feed a barbaric slave trade. The brutality of Arab Muslim slavers and rapers continues in those same regions today, as seen in Darfur, which has become a magnet for Jihad-fanatics across tribal North Africa, whose men are flocking to that miserable region to get their "free land" and "free women" even as the world does nothing of substance about it, except perhaps to willfully turn their heads away from the gruesome scenes. Sudan now has oil to export, you see, so everyone must genuflect to the God of Petroleum.
Male genital mutilations in some Red Sea areas were also far more brutal than anything imaginable elsewhere, almost as bad as castration, and you'll have to buy my book (below) to get the details, as they are simply too horrific to repeat in polite society, worse than FGM in fact. This is perhaps a "hidden reason" for the severe sex-hatred and genital anxiety of adult men from those same regions today -- Saudi and Yemini Wahhibism (from which the likes of Osama Bin Ladin came) appears so founded, and around 1900 the men who suffered those ordeals were on a mission to kill everyone who wasn't so badly mutilated as themselves. The worst of the Wahhabs were beaten back by British forces during WW-I, and now of course they have Trillions in petro-dollars to spread their violence globally. Socially, these sexual issues stand behind the fanatical demand to isolate themselves from "foreigners" (who do not mutilate) so as not to "contaminate" their society with -- by their words -- the "filth" of the infidels (meaning, their intact genitals and healthier attitudes about body functions). From those regions, Islamic traders, raiders and slavers settled across Indonesia and brought these ghastly practices (an a whole lot more) with them, but geographical distance from the African and Middle East zones of slavery and most-severe genital mutilations, coupled with intermarriage with local people, and much time, reduced the worst of the genital mutilations into milder forms. Native Indonesian converts to Islam were loathe to inflict the full measure of mutilation and pain upon their children.
But now the practices are at risk of amplifying and spreading further, through the agency of the unified approvals and organization of both Mosque and State. Indonesia is going Islamic Full Bore, and so the State will take over and do it assembly-line manner even in the schools! Even while certain members of the Indonesian health-care system speak out against such practices, the whole thing stinks of a "New Medicalization" of a barbaric act, which by virtue of getting the sanitization-certification by "teachers" in the official schools, funded by official Islamic charities, will spread further. While it is only special "nurses" who perform the acts, you can bet local doctors and hospitals or clinics are not protesting this, because if they dared to do so, they would become social outcasts, possibly with their lives at risk.
Once such practices become institutionalized, organized within state or school or medical structures, they become damn near impossible to eliminate. Especially when supported by government funding -- being "free" adds to the easy shrugging-off of the practices by fence-sitting parents who might otherwise object. And it is not clear if a parent could object in these cases. Would the local Islamic clergy allow someone to "object" and keep their daughter intact? To "remain unclean"? In most Islamic societies, it is nearly impossible to be a social dissenter on anything of importance. The article below, typical of the NYT, doesn't mention that by the standards of cultures which emphasize genital mutilations, a woman with a clitoris, or a man with a foreskin, are considered "filthy" and "unclean", something like a dog which "fornicates in the street" and "rolls in the mud". In the Arab Muslim world, the worst insult one can possibly hurl at another man is to call him the "son of an uncircumcised woman".
I predict this sort of sanitization of genital mutilations, with the "official" stamp of approval and now the claim they "prevent AIDS", will pave the way for similar approvals of them within Muslim populations living in the Western nations, particularly within "Islamic schools", and from there even into non-Muslim populations. Don't believe that's possible? Look what already is happening in New York among Muslim populations, where public rituals of self-flagellation are already occurring:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019666.php
Little boys are also "trained" to do this to themselves, a public sado-masochism no different from what the Catholics do in the Opus Dei cult. A high percentage of Catholics once self-flagellated, and the bell-ringing in the church, at the time of my childhood, required everyone to make a symbolic chest-touching, a remnant practice from the days when people used whips on themselves. Islam has not reformed on any of these things, except in very small measures due to geographical distance from the dead heart of Arabia.
This article exposes what appears to be an attempt to render the horrific genital mutilations into something hygienic and more globally acceptable, an effort by Muslims to rid themselves of the condemnations of more civilized cultures... so FGM is no longer performed down in the dirt, with village women beating on drums and tambourines, chanting loudly to drown out the hysterical screams of the young girls. No, they have figured out, the West will object far less if the most sensitive parts of the genitals are cut away under "sanitary conditions", in rooms similar to a "dentist's office", a "room with toys". The push is on, to make FGM as "acceptable" within the medical community as MGM is within certain Western nations, "acceptable" as in American hospitals where baby boys have their sensitive foreskins shred away, where the stunned reactions of babies are muffled behind closed doors, and all the masked and gowned mutilators consider themselves better than the Voo Doo sadist-priests who do it in the jungle or temples, or who do it to little girls. One could forget, these all are barbaric acts designed to stamp out sexual feelings, with MGM to "tame the penis", and FGM to wipe out sexual feeling totally, to cut away parts of the emotional and sexual lives, and humanity of the victims, and make them into something deadened and less alive, more cold-heartedly fanatical, just like those who celebrate or perform the mutilations.
All of these aspects are elucidated in greater detail in my Saharasia book:
James DeMeo
+++++++
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20circumcision-t.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/20/magazine/20080120_CIRCUMCISION_SLIDESHOW_index.html
A Cutting Tradition
When a girl is taken - usually by her mother - to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl's genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she's given a small, celebratory gift - some fruit or a donated piece of clothing - and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.
These photos were taken in April 2006, at the foundation's annual mass circumcision, which is free and open to the public and
held during the lunar month marking the birth of the prophet Muhammad. The Assalaam Foundation runs several schools and a mosque in Bandung, Indonesia's third-largest city and the capital of West Java. The photographer Stephanie Sinclair was taken to the circumcision event by a reproductive-health observer from Jakarta and allowed to spend several hours there. Over the course of that Sunday morning, more than 200 girls were circumcised, many of them appearing to be under the age of 5. Meanwhile, in a nearby building, more than 100 boys underwent a traditional circumcision as well.
According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation's chairman of social services, there are three "benefits" to circumcising girls.
"One, it will stabilize her libido," he said through an interpreter. "Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology."
Female genital cutting - commonly identified among international human rights groups as female genital mutilation - has been outlawed in 15 African countries. Many industrialized countries also have similar laws. Both France and the U.S. have prosecuted immigrant residents for performing female circumcisions.
In Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, a debate over whether to ban female circumcision is in its early stages. The Ministry of Health has issued a decree forbidding medical personnel to practice it, but the decree which has yet to be backed by legislation does not affect traditional circumcisers and birth attendants, who are thought to do most female circumcisions. Many agree that a full ban is unlikely without strong support from the country's religious leaders. According to the Population Council study, many Indonesians view circumcision for boys and girls as a religious duty.
Female circumcision in Indonesia is reported to be less extreme than the kind practiced in other parts of the globe - Africa, particularly. Worldwide, female genital cutting affects up to 140 million women and girls in varying degrees of severity, according to estimates from the World Health Organization. The most common form of female genital cutting, representing about 80 percent of cases around the world, includes the excision of the clitoris and the labia minora. A more extreme version of the practice, known as Pharaonic circumcision or infibulation, accounts for 15 percent of cases globally and involves the removal of all external genitalia and a stitching up of the vaginal opening.
Studies have shown that in some parts of Indonesia, female circumcision is more ritualistic - a rite of passage meant to purify the genitals and bestow gender identity on a female child - with a practitioner rubbing turmeric on the genitals or pricking the clitoris once with a needle to draw a symbolic drop of blood. In other instances, the procedure is more invasive, involving what WHO classifies as "Type I" female genital mutilation, defined as excision of the clitoral hood, called the prepuce, with or without incision of the clitoris itself. The Population Council's 2003 study said that 82 percent of Indonesian mothers who witnessed their daughters' circumcision reported that it involved "cutting." The women most often identified the clitoris as the affected body part. The amount of flesh removed, if any, was alternately described by circumcisers as being the size of a quarter-grain of rice, a guava seed, a bean, the tip of a leaf, the head of a needle.
At the Assalaam Foundation, traditional circumcisers say they learn the practice from other women during several years of apprenticing. Siti Rukasitta, who has been a circumciser at the foundation for 20 years, said through an interpreter that they use a small pair of sterilized scissors to cut a piece of the clitoral prepuce about the size of a nail clipping. Population Council observers who visited the event before the 2003 study, however, reported that they also witnessed some cases of circumcisers cutting the clitoris itself.
Any distinction between injuring the clitoris or the clitoral hood is irrelevant, says Laura Guarenti, an obstetrician and WHO's medical officer for child and maternal health in Jakarta. "The fact is there is absolutely no medical value in circumcising girls," she says. "It is 100 percent the wrong thing to be doing." The circumcision of boys, she adds, has demonstrated health benefits, namely reduced risk of infection and some protection against H.I.V.
Nonetheless, as Western awareness of female genital cutting has grown, anthropologists, policy makers and health officials have warned against blindly judging those who practice it, saying that progress is best made by working with local leaders and opinion-makers to gradually shift the public discussion of female circumcision from what it's believed to bestow upon a girl toward what it takes away. "These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children," Guarenti, a native of Italy, told me. "For our culture that is not easily understandable. To judge them harshly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way."
+++++++
PS. from James DeMeo: The last paragraph of the article above is a falsehood. Firstly, only SOME "anthropologists, policy makers and health officials" are warning against what they claim is "blind judgement". Those "professionals" who "warn" against clear-speaking in fact appear more sympathetic towards the people who do the mutilations, than they are to the victims. While parents and nurses and doctors may exhibit "outrage reactions" in having their knife-attacks upon the sexual organs of children being called "mutilations", and themselves identified as "mutilators", in fact such clarity and public condemnation is a strong social vaccine which, when coupled with public education on the severe dangers and crippling nature of those mutilations, tends to convince more people against them, and more quickly. Education is paramount, but this demands clear plain speaking, unapologetic total opposition to such practices, and an end to smooth-talking apologisms. For example: Starting in the 1800s, in areas of East Africa where the Catholic Church established clinics, faced with high rates of deaths and infections of girls subjected to genital mutilations, a decision was made by the Church leaders to make female genital mutilation more "sanitary" -- and so they trained their midwives how to do the dirty deed in their clinics. That immediately lowered the complication rates from FGM, but led to their persistence over time. The Protestant missionaries also established clinics, but refused to allow their midwives to do such things, firing any of their staff who did so. They made a public education program against the mutilations, publicly identified and condemned the mutilators, and worked to convince local leaders to outlaw the practices. By the 1960s, female genital mutilation had declined dramatically in the Protestant regions, but had persisted or even increased in the Catholic areas. The lesson is, you make changes in life-negative social institutions through clear and unapologetic public education statements in opposition to them, by publicly identifying the worst perpetrators, by not soft-peddling barbaric practices through politically-corrected language and "making nice", and by making emotional alliances with the victims of atrocity and not with those who perpetrate such abuses.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep
Mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep
Phone makers' own scientists discover that bedtime use can lead to headaches, confusion and depression
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
20 January 2008
Radiation from mobile phones delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches and confusion, according to a new study.
The research, sponsored by the mobile phone companies themselves, shows that using the handsets before bed causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time in them, interfering with the body's ability to repair damage suffered during the day.
The findings are especially alarming for children and teenagers, most of whom - surveys suggest - use their phones late at night and who especially need sleep. Their failure to get enough can lead to mood and personality changes, ADHD-like symptoms, depression, lack of concentration and poor academic performance.
The study - carried out by scientists from the blue-chip Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University in Sweden and from Wayne State University in Michigan, USA - is thought to be the most comprehensive of its kind.
Published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium and funded by the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, representing the main handset companies, it has caused serious concern among top sleep experts, one of whom said that there was now "more than sufficient evidence" to show that the radiation "affects deep sleep".
The scientists studied 35 men and 36 women aged between 18 and 45. Some were exposed to radiation that exactly mimicked what is received when using mobile phones; others were placed in precisely the same conditions, but given only "sham" exposure, receiving no radiation at all.
The people who had received the radiation took longer to enter the first of the deeper stages of sleep, and spent less time in the deepest one. The scientists concluded: "The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals components of sleep believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear are adversely affected."
The embarrassed Mobile Manufacturers Forum played down the results, insisting - at apparent variance with this published conclusion - that its "results were inconclusive" and that "the researchers did not claim that exposure caused sleep disturbance".
But Professor Bengt Arnetz, who led the study, says: "We did find an effect from mobile phones from exposure scenarios that were realistic. This suggests that they have measurable effects on the brain."
He believes that the radiation may activate the brain's stress system, "making people more alert and more focused, and decreasing their ability to wind down and fall asleep".
About half of the people studied believed themselves to be "electrosensitive", reporting symptoms such as headaches and impaired cognitive function from mobile phone use. But they proved to be unable to tell if they had been exposed to the radiation in the test.
This strengthens the conclusion of the study, as it disposes of any suggestion that knowledge of exposure influenced sleeping patterns. Even more significantly, it throws into doubt the relevance of studies the industry relies on to maintain that the radiation has no measurable effects.
A series of them - most notably a recent highly publicised study at Essex University - have similarly found that people claiming to be electrosensitive could not distinguish when the radiation was turned on in laboratory conditions, suggesting that they were not affected.
Critics have attacked the studies' methodology, but the new findings deal them a serious blow. For they show that the radiation did have an effect, even though people could not tell when they were exposed.
It also complements other recent research. A massive study, following 1,656 Belgian teenagers for a year, found most of them used their phones after going to bed. It concluded that those who did this once a week were more than three times - and those who used them more often more than five times - as likely to be "very tired".
Dr Chris Idzikowski, the director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, says: "There is now more than sufficient evidence, from a large number of reputable investigators who are finding that mobile phone exposure an hour before sleep adversely affects deep sleep."
Dr William Kohler of the Florida Sleep Institute added: "Anything that disrupts the integrity of your sleep will potentially have adverse consequences in functioning during the day, such as grouchiness, difficulty concentrating, and in children hyperactivity and behaviour problems."
David Schick, the chief executive of Exradia, which manufactures protective devices against the radiation, called on ministers to conduct "a formal public inquiry" into the effects of mobile phones.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Moving Big Rocks -- An Eye Opener!
An OBRL-News reader sent this last year, and it is quite worth the look.
Amazing.
From: Frank Wilson
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks/
Friday, January 18, 2008
History Lesson: On Muslim Claims of Accomplishment
The author below emphasizes Assyrian accomplishment over Roman, Greek and ancient Egyptian, but is essentially correct. If those other non-Islamic cultures are included into one's analysis, damn little remains by which Islam could define itself, save for the 'scholarship' of invasion, conquest, enslavement, looting, slavery and rape. J.D.
++++++++
Muslim Claims of Accomplishment
By Peter BetBasoo
ChristiansOfIraq.com | Friday, January 04, 2008
EDITOR'S NOTE: There is great need for setting the record straight on the history of the Middle East. The revisionism of the last few years will lead Western Civilization into bondage. The following letter by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo is a very important step in the right direction. It was sent by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo to Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett Packard Corporation, in response to a speech she presented in Minneapolis on September 26, 2001. It is reprinted by permission. Please read and pass it on to others.
Dear Madame Fiorina:
It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made in this little story, and to alert you to the dangers of unwittingly being drawn into the Arabist/Islamist ideology, which seeks to assimilate all cultures and religions into the Arab/Islamic fold.
By Peter BetBasoo
ChristiansOfIraq.com | Friday, January 04, 2008
EDITOR'S NOTE: There is great need for setting the record straight on the history of the Middle East. The revisionism of the last few years will lead Western Civilization into bondage. The following letter by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo is a very important step in the right direction. It was sent by Assyrian scholar Peter BetBasoo to Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett Packard Corporation, in response to a speech she presented in Minneapolis on September 26, 2001. It is reprinted by permission. Please read and pass it on to others.
Dear Madame Fiorina:
It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made in this little story, and to alert you to the dangers of unwittingly being drawn into the Arabist/Islamist ideology, which seeks to assimilate all cultures and religions into the Arab/Islamic fold.
I know you are a very busy woman, but please find ten minutes to read what follows, as it is a perspective that you will not likely get from anywhere else. I will answer some of the specific points you made in your speech, then conclude with a brief perspective on this Arabist/Islamist ideology.
Arabs and Muslims appeared on the world scene in 630 A.D., when the armies of Muhammad began their conquest of the Middle East. We should be very clear that this was a military conquest, not a missionary enterprise, and through the use of force, authorized by a declaration of a Jihad against infidels, Arabs/Muslims were able to forcibly convert and assimilate non-Arabs and non-Muslims into their fold. Very few indigenous communities of the Middle East survived this - primarily Assyrians, Jews, Armenians and Coptics (of Egypt).
Having conquered the Middle East, Arabs placed these communities under a Dhimmi (see the book DHIMMI, by Bat Ye'Or) system of governance, where the communities were allowed to rule themselves as religious minorities (Christians, Jews and Zoroastrian). These communities had to pay a tax (called a Jizzya in Arabic) that was, in effect, a penalty for being non-Muslim, and that was typically 80% in times of tolerance and up to 150% in times of oppression. This tax forced many of these communities to convert to Islam, as it was designed to do.
You state, "its architects designed buildings that defied gravity." I am not sure what you are referring to, but if you are referring to domes and arches, the fundamental architectural breakthrough of using a parabolic shape instead of a spherical shape for these structures was made by the Assyrians more than 1300 years earlier, as evidenced by their archaeological record.
You state,
"its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption."
The fundamental basis of modern mathematics had been laid down not hundreds but thousands of years before by Assyrians and Babylonians, who already knew of the concept of zero, of the Pythagorean Theorem, and of many, many other developments expropriated by Arabs/Muslims (see HISTORY OF BABYLONIAN MATHEMATICS by Otto E. Neugebauer).
You state,
"its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease."
The overwhelming majority of these doctors (99%) were Assyrians. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries Assyrians began a systematic translation of the Greek body of knowledge into Assyrian. At first, they concentrated on the religious works but then quickly moved to science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into Arabic. It is these Arabic translations which the Moors brought with them into Spain, and which the Spaniards translated into Latin and spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the European Renaissance.
By the sixth century A.D., Assyrians had begun exporting back to Byzantia their own works on science, philosophy and medicine. In the field of medicine, the Bakhteesho Assyrian family produced nine generations of physicians, and founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur (Iran). Also in the area of medicine, (the Assyrian) Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's textbook on ophthalmology, written in 950 A.D., remained the authoritative source on the subject until 1800 A.D.
In the area of philosophy, the Assyrian philosopher Job of Edessa developed a physical theory of the universe, in the Assyrian language, that rivaled Aristotle's theory, and that sought to replace matter with forces (a theory that anticipated some ideas in quantum mechanics, such as the spontaneous creation and destruction of matter that occurs in the quantum vacuum).
One of the greatest Assyrian achievements of the fourth century was the founding of the first university in the world, the School of Nisibis, which had three departments, theology, philosophy and medicine, and which became a magnet and center of intellectual development in the Middle East. The statutes of the School of Nisibis, which have been preserved, later became the model upon which the first Italian university was based (see THE STATUTES OF THE SCHOOL OF NISIBIS by Arthur Voobus).
When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization that became the foundation of the Arab civilization.
You state,
"Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration."
This is a bit melodramatic. In fact, the astronomers you refer to were not Arabs but Chaldeans and Babylonians (of present day south-Iraq), who for millennia were known as astronomers and astrologers, and who were forcibly Arabized and Islamized - so rapidly that by 750 A.D. they had disappeared completely.
You state,
"its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things."
There is very little literature in the Arabic language that comes from this period you are referring to (the Koran is the only significant piece of literature), whereas the literary output of the Assyrians and Jews was vast. The third largest corpus of Christian writing, after Latin and Greek, is by the Assyrians in the Assyrian language (also called Syriac).
You state,
"when other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others."
This is a very important issue you raise, and it goes to the heart of the matter of what Arab/Islamic civilization represents. I reviewed a book titled HOW GREEK SCIENCE PASSED TO THE ARABS, in which author De Lacy O'Leary lists the significant translators and interpreters of Greek science. Of the 22 scholars listed, 20 were Assyrians, one was Persian and one an Arab. I state at the end of my review:
"The salient conclusion which can be drawn from O'Leary's book is that Assyrians played a significant role in the shaping of the Islamic world via the Greek corpus of knowledge. If this is so, one must then ask the question, what happened to the Christian communities which made them lose this great intellectual enterprise they had established? One can ask this same question of the Arabs. Sadly, O'Leary's book does not answer this question, and we must look elsewhere for the answer."
I did not answer this question I posed in the review because it was not the place to answer it, but the answer is very clear, the Christian Assyrian community was drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam (by the Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called "Golden Age of Islam" came to an end (about 850 A.D.).
Islam the religion itself was significantly molded by Assyrians and Jews (see NESTORIAN INFLUENCE ON ISLAM and HAGARISM: THE MAKING OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD).
Arab/Islamic civilization is not a progressive force, it is a regressive force; it does not give impetus, it retards. The great civilization you describe was not an Arab/Muslim accomplishment, it was an Assyrian accomplishment that Arabs expropriated and subsequently lost when they drained, through the forced conversion of Assyrians to Islam, the source of the intellectual vitality that propelled it. What other Arab/Muslim civilization has risen since? What other Arab/Muslim successes can we cite?
You state,
"and perhaps we can learn a lesson from his [Suleiman] example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions."
In fact, the Ottomans were extremely oppressive to non-Muslims. For example, young Christian boys were forcefully taken from their families, usually at the age of 8-10, and inducted into the Janissaries, (yeniceri in Turkish) where they were Islamized and made to fight for the Ottoman state. What literary, artistic or scientific achievements of the Ottomans can we point to? We can, on the other hand, point to the genocide of 750,000 Assyrians, 1.5 million Armenians and 400,000 Greeks in World War One by the Kemalist "Young Turk" government. This is the true face of Islam.
Arabs/Muslims are engaged in an explicit campaign of destruction and expropriation of cultures and communities, identities and ideas. Wherever Arab/Muslim civilization encounters a non-Arab/Muslim one, it attempts to destroy it (as the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan were destroyed, as Persepolis was destroyed by the Ayotollah Khomeini).
This is a pattern that has been recurring since the advent of Islam, 1400 years ago, and is amply substantiated by the historical record. If the "foreign" culture cannot be destroyed, then it is expropriated, and revisionist historians claim that it is and was Arab, as is the case of most of the Arab "accomplishments" you cited in your speech. For example, Arab history texts in the Middle East teach that Assyrians were Arabs, a fact that no reputable scholar would assert, and that no living Assyrian would accept. Assyrians first settled Nineveh, one of the major Assyrian cities, in 5000 B.C., which is 5630 years before Arabs came into that area. Even the word 'Arab' is an Assyrian word, meaning "Westerner" (the first written reference to Arabs was by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, 800 B.C., in which he tells of conquering the "ma'rabayeh" - Westerners. See THE MIGHT THAT WAS ASSYRIA by H. W. F. Saggs).
Even in America this Arabization policy continues. On October 27th a coalition of seven Assyrian and Maronite organizations sent an official letter to the Arab American Institute asking it to stop identifying Assyrians and Maronites as Arabs, which it had been deliberately doing.
There are minorities and nations struggling for survival in the Arab/Muslim ocean of the Middle East and Africa (Assyrians, Armenians, Coptics, Jews, southern Sudanese, Ethiopians, Nigerians...), and we must be very sensitive not to unwittingly and inadvertently support Islamic fascism and Arab Imperialism, with their attempts to wipe out all other cultures, religions and civilizations. It is incumbent upon each one of us to do our homework and research when making statements and speeches about these sensitive matters.
I hope you found this information enlightening. You may contact me at keepa@ninevehsoft.com for further questions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Must-See Video, Follow-Up on Canadian Star-Chamber
Go to this website, an inspiring speech. Canadians especially you will want to see this. Watch the body-language of the bureaucrat. This is what's coming in all the Western nations, a parallel legal assault against our existing freedoms, even as the militant Islamic factions plot and carry out terror attacks. Saharasia is spreading.
Opening statement
By Ezra Levant on January 12, 2008
Here is a video clip of my opening statement. The other two people in the room are the "human rights officer", Shirlene McGovern, and my lawyer Tom Ross.
This is what an interrogation in 2008 looks like. It's not in a dungeon, or even a secure government facility. It's not done by paramilitaries in uniforms. It looks banal -- in a meeting room at a law office, with a bored bureaucrat. It's what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil".
Canadian Freedom of Press, Speech Under Islamofascist Attack
Bad enough that Oriana Fallaci had to flee Italy after her writings came under government assault, and her life came under assault by Muslim fanatics, for "offending Muslims". Bad enough that Hirsi Ali had to flee Europe after her associate Theo Van Gogh was shot and had his throat cut on an Amsterdam street, and after she came under government assault also, for daring to "offend Muslims". Now, it is creeping into the English-speaking world, specifically in Britain and Canada, where new "hate speech" laws are being used by Star Chambers to enforce the hard-left and Islamofascist version of political correctness upon the entire populations. Muslims can vent poisonous hatred daily in the mosques, and the mainstream news says little or nothing about it, other than to issue denials. Muslims can commit violent "honor" murders of their female relatives on Western soil, leaving behind a trail of evidence about the Islamic fanaticism of their motivations, but the MSM won't even mention the "M" word -- even while the occasional violent Christian fanatic who kills their family members is clearly identified as such. But if you dare to write a book informing others about what's going on behind the Islamic veils, educating people as to what the MSM hasn't dared to speak, then you are committing "hate speech" which gets you in trouble with the over-funded Stalinist bureaucracy. (Hint: the only way to truly restrain such abuses is to smash the government budgets down to the bare minimum.)
For the record, we can still get copies of the offending book mentioned below, and will happily ship copies anywhere in the world, if needed in a plain brown paper wrapper marked "Islamic prayer rug" -- that way it will sail right through Custom's, as opposed to marking it "book" which is increasingly likely to have it routed to the Ministry for Free Thought where such things are scrutinized for their cultural sensitivity. We also have lots of similar books and DVDs exposing authentic Islamic hate speech -- imams and mullahs calling for beheading of infidels, violent overthrow of Western democracies, calling for more terror bombings, "kill the Jews", etc. -- available from our on-line bookstore:
http://www.orgonelab.org/cart/xsaharasiatoday.htm
Get 'em while they are legal.
And, oh, once again, Merry Christmas and Happy Hannuka! Is it still legal to say that? J.D.
PS. Whatever happened to "I totally disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."? Too "old fashioned" I suppose.
2 items below.
++++++
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24033
Stand By Steyn
by Robert Spencer
Posted: 12/19/2007
The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal have begun proceedings against Mark Steyn, author of America Alone. They are responding to complaints from the Canadian Islamic Congress about an excerpt from the book that was published in the Canadian journal Maclean's. "The article," the CIC claims, "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt," and was "flagrantly Islamophobic."
To be sure, the article was pretty strong stuff. Here's a bit of it: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades." Even worse, it goes on to say: "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children."
"A Muslim continent"! "The number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes"! No wonder the CIC was upset. And not just the CIC: writer Jim Henley, whose articles have appeared in The New Republic and The American Spectator Online, quoted the "mosquitoes" line and called Steyn a "racist." There were just two problems: The "Muslim continent" statement is not only factual, it's stated in words no one can characterize as inflammatory. (Also, it's been said by Libya's strongman Muammar Qaddafi). Second, "The number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes" was not Steyn's phrase. He was quoting Mullah Krekar, a jihadist who currently resides in Norway, although officials have been trying for years to get him out of the country.
And that sums up the problem with the Canadian human rights commissions' action against Steyn: he was simply reporting on contemporary European reality. It was not Mark Steyn, but Algerian leader Houari Boumédienne who said at the United Nations in 1974: "One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory." Those who want to silence Steyn want to suppress facts and limit free speech.
It was not Steyn who said that "Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor," and that "the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology." That was Al-Jazeera's Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi, who is widely hailed as a moderate reformer in the West. Did Steyn say that Muslims "will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it"? Nope. That one comes from a Saudi Sheikh, Muhammad bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Arifi, imam of the mosque of King Fahd Defense Academy.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission is putting itself in the peculiar position of penalizing those non-Muslims who report on such statements, as if it is somehow an act encouraging "hatred and contempt" to reveal the unpleasant reality that comprises mainstream Islamic rhetoric today. There is no indication that the CHRC has done a thing to investigate the possibility that some Muslims in Canada might hold the views of Mullah Krekar, Qaddafi, Boumédienne, Qaradhawi and Sheikh Muhammad. When the CIC's President Mohamed Elmasry said in 2004 that all Israelis over age eighteen were legitimate targets, the CHRC took no action. But Elmasry, you see, is part of a protected victim class.
Actions like the one against Steyn threaten the foundation of free society. Once you declare one group off-limits for critical examination, once you declare that these people -- whoever they may be -- must at all costs not be offended, then you have destroyed one of the essential elements of free speech and political debate. In a free society, people with differing opinions live together in harmony, agreeing not to force their neighbor to be silent if his opinions offend them. If offensive speech had been prohibited in the 1770s, there would be no United States of America, and that is one of the reasons for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Of course, Canada is a different case -- but wherever offensive speech is prohibited, the tyrant's power is solidified. That is no less so in this case, although the tyrant in question is of a different kind.
++++++++++
http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=97308&sc=465
Commentator defends publishing controversial Muslim cartoons CALGARY
KEITH BONNELL
Canwest News Service
Contrition wasn't on Ezra Levant's mind.
The controversial conservative commentator went into an Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission hearing in Calgary with guns blazing yesterday, using his website to republish the same cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that got him into trouble in the first place.
And Levant's dispute with some members of Alberta's Muslim community became even more personal this week, as the head of a Calgary Muslim group said he now fears for the safety of his family due to "lies" Levant has been spreading about him.
"Contriteness implies that you've done something wrong for which you need to apologize or atone," Levant said moments before his 90-minute meeting with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.
"I have not done anything wrong."
The commission is investigating Levant's decision two years ago, as publisher of the Western Standard magazine, to print a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The same cartoons already had ignited violent protests and death threats from Muslims around the world after the images appeared in a Danish newspaper.
Syed Soharwardy, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed a complaint after the Western Standard published the cartoons, and the commission is now investigating. The cartoons included an image of a Muslim man with a bomb-shaped turban.
Levant, his lawyer and his wife attended a closed meeting yesterday with a human rights officers.
The commentator said he was asked about his rationale for publishing the cartoons.
"I don't need to be reasonable. I have maximum rights of free speech," he said later. "I have the right to publish this for the most offensive reason, for the most unreasonable reasons."
The commission's director said it would decide whether the complaint should be dismissed, go to an arbitrator or go to a full human rights complaint hearing.
For Soharwardy, the issue has become intensely personal.
He fired off a letter to Calgary police yesterday, complaining about statements made by Levant on his blog that refer to the Muslim leader as a "radical, Saudi-trained imam who has publicly called for sharia law to be imposed in Canada."
"I have asked him, what kind of training did I get in Saudi Arabia?" an angry Soharwardy said from Calgary.
He said Levant has also called him anti-Semitic, despite the fact Soharwardy's mosque celebrates Hanukkah with the local Jewish community.
"These people have the intent to incite hate against Muslims," Soharwardy said.
"God forbid if somebody reads from his website - (if) any fanatic reads it - and he attacks me, who's responsible?
"If any crime (is) committed against me or my family, I will hold Mr. Ezra Levant responsible."
Levant isn't backing down, calling his appearance before the human rights commission "an interrogation."
"To me, this is offensive," he said.
"A secular government bureaucracy has essentially been hijacked by a radical Muslim imam. It's being used to further his fatwa against these cartoons."
"We have a great tradition of free speech in Canada," he said.
"My freedom to publish a cartoon that some radical Muslim imam doesn't like - well, that's the free west for ya."
Friday, January 11, 2008
Medical fascists strike again...
If you like what Big Government has done in the report below, you are gonna love socialized medicine. More power, rule-making authority, and taxes to the government, less power to the people. Go to the original for the imbedded weblinks.
++++++++
POLICE STATE, USA
Mother warns community about 'Nazi' home invasion
Mother warns community about 'Nazi' home invasion
Officers told her 'rights' were 'only in the movies'
By Bob Unruh
The mother of an 11-year-old boy abducted by SWAT team members and taken to a hospital after he was bruised while horsing around is warning members of her community of the "Nazi" tactics she endured, including a statement from the officers that her "rights" were "only in the movies."
The case involves Jon Shiflet, who injured himself while trying to grab the handle of a door on a car his sister was driving. He slipped and fell to the pavement, hitting his head. His parents treated him for the injury and rejected paramedics' demands that they be allowed to take him to a hospital.
Nearly 36 hours later, SWAT team members broke into the family home in western Colorado near New Castle and took Jon to a hospital, where a doctor said the family should keep ice on his bruise, exactly the treatment the family already had been providing.
Tina Shiflett, Jon's mother, has written a letter to the editor to a local newspaper, the Post Independent, "to awaken, alert and appall any who read it and hear the bells ringing."
"A fully armed SWAT team broke into our home, slammed my children to the floor face down with their hands behind their backs and shoved a gun in my daughter's face and handcuffed her" her letter said.
In a separate letter to WND, she elaborated a little more fully.
During the attack, she wrote, "One (officer) grabbed my daughter Beth (18 years), who also had a gun to her face, slammed her down and kneed her in the back and held her in that position My sons Adam (14) and Noah (only 7) lay down willingly, yet they were still forced to put their hands behind their backs and were yelled at to keep their heads down.
"My daughter Jeanette was coming out from the back bedroom when she was grabbed, drug down the hallway, across a couch and slammed to the ground," she said. "The officers then began throwing scissors and screwdrivers across the room (out of our reach, I suppose) and going through our cupboards.
"I asked if I could make a phone call and was told, 'no.' My daughter asked if that wasn't one of our rights. The reply was made, 'That's only in the movies,'" she told WND.
It was some unidentified person, possibly a paramedic who had been refused permission to take Jon Shiflett to the hospital as she wanted, who provided information last week that convinced a magistrate to issue a court order that Jon be taken into state custody and examined by a doctor.
He was taken by SWAT team members dispatched by the sheriff to the family's home at 11 p.m. at night, and they punched a hole in the front door and held guns on other children in the family in order to take Jon.
"The armed men in black masks took my terrified son against his wishes to Grand River Hospital, where he was examined by a doctor and interrogated by Social Services. No evidence was found that he had not been properly taken care of. Upon his return, we were told to keep ice on his head," Tina Shiflett's letter to the editor said.
"To the SWAT Team members how far will you go in 'just doing your job?' If you feel no guilt busting into an innocent family's home, traumatizing young children and stomping the security found therein, will you follow more horrific orders?" she wrote.
"May I remind you that in Nazi Germany, outrageous, monstrous crimes were committed by soldiers 'just doing their job?' What will be next? Where will this stop?" she wrote.
"Fathers, mothers, families and countrymen, I challenge you to consider our story and ask yourself the question, 'If this were my family, what would I do?' For it very well could be you next!"
Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario told WND he simply ordered his officers to do exactly what the magistrate demanded.
"I was given a court order by the magistrate to seize the child, and arrange for medical evaluation, and that's what we did," he said.
The situation developed at the Apple Tree Mobile Home Park near New Castle last week when Jon Shiflett was horsing around and fell. Tom Shiflett carried his son home and put an ice pack on his head, while examining him to see whether his mental faculties were there. The boy correctly recited Bible verses and spelled words, the parents told WND.
But paramedics were called by a neighbor, and when they arrived, Tom Shiflett let them see his son, but refused their demands that he be taken to a hospital. The paramedics then apparently lobbied the city police, the sheriff's office, social workers and eventually the magistrate in order to get their way in having Jon taken to a hospital.
Jim Bradford, a court clerk in Garfield County, said it was a juvenile matter and he could not comment on any aspect of the case, and he declined to allow WND to leave a message for Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak, who signed the order.
But participants in a forum at the Rocky Mountain News, which carried reports subsequent to the WND report, seemed to agree with Tina Shiflett.
Wrote ItsJustMe, "Welcome to the coming socialist police state."
Said "mrNiceGuy," "Police man shoots man in heart at a distant range, is not charged. Police cover up the events that proceed (sic) the death of someone in their custody, no one is charged. Police enter wrong apartment and shoot an unarmed man thinking a can is a weapon, no charges filed. But a kid bumps his head and his parents deem him to be ok - knock the door in and start cuffing people."
"I cannot describe the feeling of having your child abducted, taken from your care, not knowing what will happen to him, and if he will ever be returned back into your arms again," Tina Shiflett wrote in the separate letter to WND. "I record this by my own hand in hopes of awakening anyone who would read it to the injustice of our police depart (sic), social services and court system. But above all to glorify my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose reign is supreme over all this earth"
The letter clarifies that the family did, indeed, cooperate with officers who arrived about 11 p.m. on that night.
"Between 10 and 11 a sheriff came to the door. My husband met him at the window and he began to question my husband. My husband spoke with him and answered all his questions. The sheriff then said if Tom would just let him speak with Jonathan (our 11 yr. old son) this whole matter (story following) would be closed," she documented.
"Tom said, 'You are saying, 'If I let you speak to Jonathan this whole matter will be closed.?' Then Tom called for Jonathan to come to the window," she said.
"As soon as Jonathan was visible to the sheriff, a SWAT team appeared shining lights on Jon's face and others were bashing at the door with a ramming device. My daughter resisted and pushed against the door to stop them as she didn't know who they were. I told her to back up and not try to fight them. They then entered our home, held a gun to my daughter's face and others of them, five or more, rushed into the living room and physically forced my other children to the ground."
"We were told Jonathan would be taken to a hospital near us for evaluation, and then questioned by the human resources. At this point Jonathan was scared, crying and shaking. We asked if we could accompany him, or follow them to the hospital. We were warned not to try to follow him or come to the hospital or criminal charges would be pressed against us.
"Our son was returned to us at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. In all this was not one shred of evidence found that we had done anything wrong or that Jon had not been properly cared for at home," she said.
"what the?" was KarlSpackler's comment on a forum at the Denver Post.
And "mamm354" added, "Whoever it was that gave the order to do this should be thrown in jail. Illegal assaults on our privacy is why we need the second ammendment. I don't see the police being this agressive against illegal aliens but they approach their work with this level of zest against citizens!?!?! Heads should roll for this."
Lynn Rennick, the social services director in Garfield County, has said her office is required to intervene when it receives a report about "possible mistreatment" of children, but she didn't comment on any such report in this case, who may have filed it, or what it might have said.
A spokeswoman for WestCare Ambulance, which reportedly responded to the call, also refused to answer any questions about the case, saying all issues were considered patient confidentiality issues.
Ross Talbott, the owner of the Apple Tree Mobile Home Park who rents to the Shifletts, called the SWAT team actions "gross irresponsibility and stupidity."
"Is this Russia? I don't know what we're coming to when they think your kid needs medical help and they send a SWAT team," he said.
Monday, January 07, 2008
New Movie About Summerhill - BBC 21-28 January.
The following information just in from Jon East, British TV producer who previously made the "It Can Be Done" DVD.
++++++++++++
SUMMERHILL
Summerhill is a powerful emotional drama for children and adults from Tiger Aspect for BBC4 and CBBC. It is a story of personal transformation set against the eponymous school's battle for survival with Ofsted in 1999.
100' version
9pm, Monday 28th Jan, BBC4
30' version
Episode 1, 6pm, Monday 21st Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Wednesday 23rd Jan, BBC1
Episode 2, 6pm, Tuesday 22nd Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Thursday 24th Jan, BBC1
Episode 3, 6pm, Monday 28th Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Wednesday 30th Jan, BBC1
Episode 4, 6pm, Tuesday 29th Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Thursday 31st Jan, BBC1
Background
In 1999 Ofsted inspected the internationally famous 'free school' Summerhill. Despite the fact that the school achieved higher than national average exam pass rates and an unprecedented level of parental and pupil satisfaction, Ofsted issued a notice of complaint effectively seeking the school's closure. What lay behind this clash?
Summerhill school was founded in 1921 by world-renowned educator A S Neill on the principles of self-regulation. The unique Suffolk based boarding school runs as a self-governing democratic community. Pupils (aged 5 to 16), teachers, live-in house parents and Headmistress Zoe Readhead, (Neill's daughter) only possess one equal vote which they use during their thrice weekly school meetings to decide on all matters pertaining to the running of the school. This is no toothless school council. The amending, abolishing and making of rules, matters of discipline, extra-curricular activities etc, all are decided democratically, with a rotating chairperson drawn from the school's entire community. The children police themselves, dealing with infractions of their multitudinous self-imposed laws with surprising compassion and wisdom. The only rule they cannot change is the prime principle upon which A S Neill founded the school; that no child should be compelled to attend any lesson that they do not choose freely by themselves. And it was this guiding principle, at odds with everything Ofsted and the newly elected Labour government's "education, education, education" manifesto stood for, that put the highly successful school at the top of a hit list otherwise reserved for failing institutions.
Ofsted's notice of complaint required the school to abandon the key freedoms it offered its pupils. Facing closure if it failed to comply, the school instead took Ofsted to court and fought for its survival.
This fast-paced vibrant drama is aimed at a broad audience and offers the suspense generated by its compelling true David and Goliath story with the emotion and humour of semi-fictionalised tales of personal transformation. Partly filmed at the real Summerhill school with Summerhillians taking some of the roles, the drama is inspired by real events and aims to entertainingly contribute to the wider national debate around the fundamental aims and methodology of education in the UK.
Cast & Crew
Written by Alison Hume (Pure, The Vice, Rocket Man, New Tricks), produced by Stephen Smallwood (Murphy's Law, Colditz, Cadfael), exec produced for Tiger Aspect by Greg Brenman (Billy Eliot, Robin Hood, Omagh), exec produced for the BBC and directed by Jon East (Bodies, Silent Witness, The Vice).
Music by Sheridan Tongue (Spooks, Silent Witness), Cinematography by Dave Marsh (Fear of Fanny, Bonekickers), Editing by Helen Chapman, (Murphy's Law).
The cast includes Ron Cook (Hot Fuzz, Thunderbirds), Annette Badland (Doctor Who, Cutting It), Jessie Cave (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Tracy Ann-Oberman (Sorted), Connor MacIntyre (Drop Dead Gorgeous). Richard Lintern (Syriana).
New Movie About Summerhill - BBC 21-28 January.
The following information just in from Jon East, British TV producer who previously made the "It Can Be Done" DVD.
++++++++++++
SUMMERHILL
Summerhill is a powerful emotional drama for children and adults from Tiger Aspect for BBC4 and CBBC. It is a story of personal transformation set against the eponymous school's battle for survival with Ofsted in 1999.
100' version
9pm, Monday 28th Jan, BBC4
30' version
Episode 1, 6pm, Monday 21st Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Wednesday 23rd Jan, BBC1
Episode 2, 6pm, Tuesday 22nd Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Thursday 24th Jan, BBC1
Episode 3, 6pm, Monday 28th Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Wednesday 30th Jan, BBC1
Episode 4, 6pm, Tuesday 29th Jan, CBBC and repeated 430pm, Thursday 31st Jan, BBC1
Background
In 1999 Ofsted inspected the internationally famous 'free school' Summerhill. Despite the fact that the school achieved higher than national average exam pass rates and an unprecedented level of parental and pupil satisfaction, Ofsted issued a notice of complaint effectively seeking the school's closure. What lay behind this clash?
Summerhill school was founded in 1921 by world-renowned educator A S Neill on the principles of self-regulation. The unique Suffolk based boarding school runs as a self-governing democratic community. Pupils (aged 5 to 16), teachers, live-in house parents and Headmistress Zoe Readhead, (Neill's daughter) only possess one equal vote which they use during their thrice weekly school meetings to decide on all matters pertaining to the running of the school. This is no toothless school council. The amending, abolishing and making of rules, matters of discipline, extra-curricular activities etc, all are decided democratically, with a rotating chairperson drawn from the school's entire community. The children police themselves, dealing with infractions of their multitudinous self-imposed laws with surprising compassion and wisdom. The only rule they cannot change is the prime principle upon which A S Neill founded the school; that no child should be compelled to attend any lesson that they do not choose freely by themselves. And it was this guiding principle, at odds with everything Ofsted and the newly elected Labour government's "education, education, education" manifesto stood for, that put the highly successful school at the top of a hit list otherwise reserved for failing institutions.
Ofsted's notice of complaint required the school to abandon the key freedoms it offered its pupils. Facing closure if it failed to comply, the school instead took Ofsted to court and fought for its survival.
This fast-paced vibrant drama is aimed at a broad audience and offers the suspense generated by its compelling true David and Goliath story with the emotion and humour of semi-fictionalised tales of personal transformation. Partly filmed at the real Summerhill school with Summerhillians taking some of the roles, the drama is inspired by real events and aims to entertainingly contribute to the wider national debate around the fundamental aims and methodology of education in the UK.
Cast & Crew
Written by Alison Hume (Pure, The Vice, Rocket Man, New Tricks), produced by Stephen Smallwood (Murphy's Law, Colditz, Cadfael), exec produced for Tiger Aspect by Greg Brenman (Billy Eliot, Robin Hood, Omagh), exec produced for the BBC and directed by Jon East (Bodies, Silent Witness, The Vice).
Music by Sheridan Tongue (Spooks, Silent Witness), Cinematography by Dave Marsh (Fear of Fanny, Bonekickers), Editing by Helen Chapman, (Murphy's Law).
The cast includes Ron Cook (Hot Fuzz, Thunderbirds), Annette Badland (Doctor Who, Cutting It), Jessie Cave (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Tracy Ann-Oberman (Sorted), Connor MacIntyre (Drop Dead Gorgeous). Richard Lintern (Syriana).
-----------------------------------------------------
If you find this material of value, please donate to OBRL:
http://www.orgonelab.org/donation
Or, purchase books on related subjects from our on-line bookstore:
http://www.naturalenergyworks.net
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]
